The milestone for officials two years in the making

The recent NTI Townsville 500 marked a significant milestone for officials of the Repco Supercars Championship.

For the first time, the North Queensland event saw four women feature in the scrutineering team at the Reid Park Street Circuit.

Carmel Wilcox, Zoe Elliott, Desi Hepburn and Pam Lang bring several decades of experience in motorsport officiating in both pitlane and event positions.

The women conducted post-race scrutineering for all Supercars races, seeing the top three cars and drivers weighed, with measurements taken of key areas to ensure compliance with category regulations.

They also conducted scrutineering on every car that featured in both ARMOR ALL Top Ten Shootout sessions across the weekend. 

According to Chief Scrutineer Athol Wilcox, planning for the all-female team started back in 2019.

"This weekend was our first chance to get all the women together since before COVID hit," Wilcox told Supercars.com.

"We have been trying to make this happen for a long time, but couldn't get all of them together due to border restrictions. 

"It's been a great weekend and they have all received a lot of great feedback and impressed everyone with their great attitude to the work.

"We are looking forward to next year already."

The appointment marks another significant milestone for officials, following nine women featuring in leadership roles at the Townsville doubleheader last August.

For his wife and fellow scrutineer Carmel, last weekend marked her 14th Townsville event.

"I haven't missed an event since Supercars started coming to Townsville," Carmel said.

"I love it, it's my hobby I guess, and I love meeting different people each year.

"We all bring our different experiences and enjoy what we do."

If you are interested in being a marshal or a volunteer at a Supercars event, please visit https://www.supercars.com/event-race-officials/apply-now/